Thinking Person's Guide to Autism: A Real Book

Thinking Person's Guide to Autism is a real book. A real real book.

One you can order right now, and tell all your friends to order right now.

One that can hopefully make a positive difference for people with autism of any age, and their families.

(One that I wish hadn't nearly killed Jen Myers during its production process -- she deserves to be waited on by angels and noble djinni for a few weeks, trust me).

One that I really, really wish I'd had when Leo was first diagnosed with autism, so I could leapfrog all the tangents and charlatans and bad advice and bad teachers and could start out at the beginning of this autism parenting learning curve strong, aware, and hopeful, instead of afraid, confused, and depressed.

One  that -- in a move so surreal and wonderful as to near the unimaginable -- cool-as-hell investigative reporter Steve Silberman named his Book of the Year.  Book of the Year.

If you had told me Mr. Silberman might write such things years ago when I was reading his seminal, exactly-ten-years-old Wired article The Geek Syndrome, or even eighteen months ago when I discovered he was talking about revisiting and revising that article into a book, I would have scoffed. With annoyance and sincerity.

But then, that was before I had the honor of working with four fantastic TPGA co-editors and fifty-three marvelous TPGA book contributors. I do overuse the term alchemy, but alchemy is what -- and why this -- happened. And we all have our own reasons for contributing to this project. Mine is right here:

Leo having the best time ever at Hayes Valley Playground yesterday

It's rare to find folks from outside the autism communities who not only want to understand why a book like TPGA matters, but who are willing to use a sizable media megaphone to broadcast its message. Thank you, Steve, for caring so damn much and for doing the right thing.